


Perceptual Distortion

by Moro



Series: Contact Binary [2]
Category: Revelation Space Series - Alastair Reynolds
Genre: Altered Mental States, Begging, Bondage, Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, Emotional Problems, F/F, Fingerfucking, Grinding, I'm no longer sorry, Inappropriate use of Ultra technology, Latex, Man-Machine Interface, Masturbation, Mind Manipulation, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Sensory Overload, Squirting, Technological Kink, Unconscious Sex, Virtual Reality sort of, Weapons Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:02:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26448970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moro/pseuds/Moro
Summary: Even for an Ultra, Volyova is a woman with rather unusual tastes.Khouri starts to learn more about this when Volyova subjects her to an unorthodox experiment with the gunnery.-En route to Delta Pavonis, 2546-
Relationships: Ana Khouri/Ilia Volyova
Series: Contact Binary [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1935520
Kudos: 72





	Perceptual Distortion

Ilia Volyova loved her weapons.

Khouri learned this very early on. From the way Volyova spoke of her weapons it was clear she was transfixed by them; this despite the fact that in a way, the operation of them was Khouri’s domain more than hers. Operation of the gunnery had been the entire reason for Khouri’s “recruitment,” and there was a unique connection between Khouri and the gunnery that Volyova would never be able to experience. Still, no one would ever suggest that the ship’s weaponry was not a singular area of her expertise. Volyova had designed many herself, and at times seemed fonder of her weapons than of human companionship, to have more attachment to them than any of the crew. 

Except for Khouri… and it seemed likely that her connection to those weapons had something to do with that. She knew that Volyova watched her during gunnery simulations, assessing her performance, and no doubt manipulating the simulated scenarios in various ways to further challenge her, but Khouri surmised there was more to it than that. On multiple occasions, when Khouri emerged from a session of simulations, the Triumvir had practically pounced on her; _too_ many, Khouri was certain, to be coincidental. 

After the first time, in the Spider-Room, Khouri had allowed herself to contemplate the possibility that the sex would somehow be an isolated incident. Perhaps, she had initially told herself, it had merely been an unorthodox assessment of Khouri’s loyalty, a test of what she was willing to do, and nothing more. 

This was, of course, naïvete in the extreme, which deep down Khouri had probably known from the beginning. After escalating their “relationship” in this manner, it had quickly become a regular part of their interactions… something Khouri viewed with a blur of anxiety and anticipation. Yet, somehow, once Volyova was actually touching her, it was easier not to think about the confusion. 

In a way, that made things even worse.

Khouri was in her quarters, laying on her bed and staring blankly up at the high ceiling. Her room was spartan in its accommodations, but this did not bother her. It was in some respects more luxurious than what she had in her soldiering days; but its bland emptiness gave her entirely too much room to think at times when she would greatly have preferred not to.

She had begun to see the Triumvir almost as much in her dreams as she did when awake, and often awoke thinking of her cold grey eyes.

The Mademoiselle appeared in the far corner of the room, hands clasped together in a severe, matronly fashion. Khouri noticed her out of the corner of her eye and groaned. _Great. Just what I needed…_

“What,” she said tiredly, not even bothering to inflect the word into a proper question. When it was only her and the Mademoiselle in her quarters, she often defaulted to speaking to her aloud, even though the Mademoiselle’s words were still confined to the inside of her skull.

< _I’ve begun to wonder about your little… shall we say… dalliance? With Volyova,_ > the Mademoiselle said delicately. It struck Khouri that the simulation was actually attempting to sound tactful, like it was considering her own embarrassment about the situation, and somehow that was worse than if she had made no effort at all.

“God, don’t call it that,” Khouri snapped. “What do you care? I’m supposed to do what Ilia tells me. So I do. What does it matter to _you_ what that actually entails?”

 _Who am I really kidding,_ she thought. _I’m not even convincing myself. I **know** there’s… more to it than that. If it was really that simple, it’d be so much easier._

< _Call it whatever you like, it matters not to me,_ > the Mademoiselle said with a dismissive wave of her hand. < _But it has been happening so regularly ever since. I daresay now you’re almost **eager** to please her, and I find that concerning._>

Khouri made an irritated sound through her teeth, flushing in spite of herself. “That’s—I seem to remember you telling me something like, ‘just relax and try to enjoy myself, it’ll make it easier’? And now… what, you’re upset that I did _exactly_ what you told me? You were hoping it would be horrible for me? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it turns out it’s not all bad.”

Her words came rapidly, spilling out faster than she could think them through. She had not quite meant to admit it so openly, but it was too late. She cursed herself for her careless slip of the tongue. _But it’s the truth. Damn it, it’s the truth…_

< _So you admit you enjoy it,_ > the Mademoiselle said, adopting a smug expression. She paused, then her expression became grave. < _Be very careful, Khouri. Ilia Volyova is not a woman you should become involved with too deeply. For your own sake, and the sake of your mission, you should be wary._ >

“Why would you be worried about _that_?” Khouri asked, extremely eager to pivot to another part of the issue, away from any discussion of the sex itself. “You told me you were countering her loyalty therapies. You keep insisting that you are any time I show any doubts. So long as you’ve got that handled, there shouldn’t be a problem.” She was dodging the issue, and she knew it, and so did the Mademoiselle, but the both of them were like actors in a play, following their predetermined lines.

< _You still doubt me in that, despite my endless reassurances,_ > the Mademoiselle said stiffly. < _It makes me wonder what may be going on inside your head, that causes you to be so doubtful._ >

“I don’t trust you. That isn’t exactly a new development.”

< _As I have reminded you on several occasions, if my countermeasures had completely failed, you would already have told Volyova everything._ >

“So you say.” Khouri sat up, glaring. “I’ve wanted to tell her… lots of things, sometimes. Maybe you’re not as competent as you think. Maybe she’s cleverer than you.”

This was an argument that Khouri and the Mademoiselle had been rehashing in some form or another for roughly the past month. It was a largely pointless exercise, and Khouri knew it, but every time she was unable to stop herself from lashing out at the Beta-level simulation, going through the same useless exchanges. Perhaps she was just taking out her own emotional problems on the Mademoiselle because doing so was less stressful than thinking about them in any great detail, or perhaps the Mademoiselle continued to press her on the issue because the simulation had some concern that Khouri would let it slip from her mind if she was not constantly reminded. Whatever the case, it was an argument that had played out numerous times already, and here it was, playing out again in exactly the same form.

< _My countermeasures are effective enough,_ > the Mademoiselle reiterated, sounding miffed. < _It’s **because** I am countering them that this concerns me._> She paused in a manner which was obviously deliberate, an affectation, rather than genuine need to consider her words.< _Tell me, Khouri, how do you feel about her, **really**?_>

“Listen, as long as I’ve got my head on straight—” Khouri choked in the middle of her sentence. Something about her word choice struck her as deeply unfortunate. She cleared her throat self-consciously before resuming. “I’m still thinking clearly enough,” she edited, “and it is absolutely none of your business how I feel, about Ilia or anything else.”

< _I see you won’t give me a clear answer. What is it you are trying to hide? What is it you don’t want me to know?_ >

“It’s none of your fucking business how I _feel_!” Khouri repeated, her voice rising in volume. She glared at her venomously, loathing the pristine artificiality of her Renaissance-painting hair and sparkling gown. “I have things _handled_. I have it _under control_.”

 _I can’t let her actually see how much of a fucking mess this is making of me. It’ll just make everything worse…_

The Mademoiselle adopted an entirely blank expression, or rather absence of expression, frustratingly inscrutable. < _I’m not sure you have control of much of anything, dear._ >

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Khouri said flatly. _Why did she have to be so damned perceptive?!_ “Listen, why don’t you just… let me handle things with Ilia? It won’t make a difference with Sylveste. It’s _him_ you want me to kill, not her!”

She faltered before speaking any more. Again, she’d revealed more of her thoughts than she had intended, and she cursed herself for being so careless. _Surely I won’t need to hurt Ilia to kill Sylveste,_ she reassured herself. _There’s no way it would come to that._

< _I am trusting you with this matter, Khouri,_ > the Mademoiselle said gently, in the tone of a disappointed parent with a wayward child. < _It’s only my desire to warn you, that getting too close with Volyova **will** prove to be a problem for you later on, in more ways than you could foresee._>

“Fine, I’ll take it under consideration,” Khouri answered icily. “Thanks for your concern.” 

It was obvious the Mademoiselle didn’t buy it. < _Have you, perhaps, forgotten the circumstances of your recruitment? I seem to recall you weren’t so happy with her then._ >

“Are you _trying_ to make things harder for me? Look, that doesn’t fucking matter now!” Khouri was getting angrier now and it was harder for her to keep her voice down. With the door to her quarters closed it was unlikely anyone could hear anything from outside, but that was no reason to be careless. She took a slow, deep breath and made a conscious effort to lower her voice to a normal volume. “How I do or don’t feel about Ilia won’t make a difference in any of this.”

< _If you say so._ > The digital ghost sounded entirely unconvinced. Another scripted pause. < _Need I remind you of the reason you accepted this… agreement in the first place?_ >

“Don’t you _dare_ bring that up.” Khouri ground the words out between clenched teeth. “We are _not_ talking about that. It has _nothing_ to do with Ilia.” 

< _She’s a dangerous woman, dear girl,_ > the Mademoiselle pressed on. < _Very cunning, and crueler than I think you’ve realized. I don’t think you’ve quite realized how dangerous she really is._ >

“What do _you_ know about her anyway? I can take care of myself! Just trust me to do my fucking job, and _leave me alone_ about… this, all right?” 

< _Very well, I can see you aren’t going to listen to me,_ > the Mademoiselle answered testily. She actually sounded genuinely annoyed, which was a good deal more emotion than Khouri was accustomed to hearing from the simulation. < _Perhaps you’ll simply have to learn the hard way. Don’t come crying to me when you get hurt, and your task becomes that much harder for you._ > The Mademoiselle’s digital avatar turned on her heel as if to walk out of the room, her glittering blue dress swishing dramatically as she winked out of existence.

Khouri turned the Mademoiselle’s parting statement over and over in her head, puzzled. _What was that about “getting hurt”? The rest is the same shit, but I don’t remember her mentioning anything like that before._ The Mademoiselle couldn’t read Khouri’s thoughts, beyond what Khouri herself expressed to her, but sometimes Khouri wondered if the Beta-level simulation could pick up on some of her emotions or the thoughts that passed through her mind while she was talking to her even if she did not vocalize them. She was used to the Mademoiselle giving indication that she knew a great deal more than she shared with Khouri, but it struck her as very odd for the woman to give much thought to Khouri’s emotional state, let alone express anything about it.

 _I have it handled. This… my… relationship with Ilia… it’s not going to be a problem. When it comes time I’ll figure out how to kill Sylveste and nothing about Ilia is going to change that. I have things under control._ She ran her hands through her hair with a heavy sigh. _Don’t I?_

Just then, a voice chimed in over comms. It was Volyova. 

“Khouri, report to the gunnery. I’ve worked out some new simulations for you.” Pause. “And do put on that experimental suit I gave you.”

“All right, Ilia,” Khouri said.

~ * ~ * ~

Khouri climbed the sharp-runged ladder to the gunnery chamber. Volyova was already inside, leaning against one of the concave walls and smoking a cigarette. She looked faintly bored, but as she glanced at Khouri as she emerged through the trapdoor, the ghost of a smile briefly appeared on her face.

Khouri flashed a nervous smile in return as she climbed up the gimballed supports that held the gunnery seat. She was grateful for a session of simulations. Repetitive and uninteresting though they often were, gunspace was a welcome respite from such troubling thoughts as to the nature of her relationship with Volyova or the impossible situation with her mission to kill Sylveste. And as long as she performed well in these exercises, which she nearly always did, Volyova was pleased with her. Occasionally, she even praised Khouri for particularly clever or inventive performance in a tricky scenario.

It was _those_ sessions that usually ended with Khouri sprawled on the couch in the Spider-Room, or sometimes another convenient location; to be left spent, gasping and exhausted.

Khouri settled into the gunnery seat with a tired sigh. It enclosed and embraced her, wrapping connections around her limbs as the helmet gently lowered over her head, its electromagnetic sensors already sending a slight tingling over her skull as they synced with her implants. She palmed the interface control and pressed down on the heavy switch to close the link. As her own body slipped from consciousness, fading into insignificance as it was replaced by the abstract array of diagnostic readouts and myriad overlaid views of gunspace, she already felt the reassuring calm settling the turmoil in her mind, suffusing her with a modicum of welcome tranquility.

“Anything in particular I should keep in mind today, Triumvir?” Khouri asked, before the simulation had activated. Volyova was standing in the gunnery chamber below her, so she could speak to her simply by raising her voice to sufficient volume. 

“Not as yet,” Volyova said. “I’ll be monitoring you.” 

Volyova waited until Khouri was absorbed in the simulation, satisfied that she had fully transitioned into gunspace. She walked toward the gunnery seat as she finished her cigarette. The gunnery chair did not much resemble a chair by any usual description; glossy and black, encased in multiple layers of gyroscopic mechanism to allow it to be stabilized independently from the ship, it evoked the image of a split-open chrysalis. Cables of all sizes and colors snaked into and between the mechanisms and the various connecting points in a dizzying, intestinal tangle, their functions too numerous to catalogue. There was an elegance in the disorder, or so Volyova felt, each component of the gunnery designed perfectly for its intended use. And it now contained its final and arguably most important piece.

Volyova clambered carefully up and through the shells and supports of the gunnery seat around to the front. The large black helmet and series of encasing mechanisms around Khouri’s limbs held her in place gently. Volyova had called up a particularly challenging scenario beforehand; something she was confident Khouri could handle, but it would no doubt be a test of her cognitive limits. Such things were necessary, and Volyova found it enjoyable to craft these strategic puzzles, and to see the ways in which Khouri overcame them. But in addition to its obvious practical purposes, Volyova had come to love the subtle ways in which Khouri’s physical body reacted to the mental load of gunspace.

Khouri’s breathing was eminently slow and relaxed, like someone sleeping. Though she was mostly immobilized by the gunnery seat, she was not paralyzed, and Volyova observed small involuntary movements as she watched her; a twitching of her hands as though grasping for something that was not there, little jerks of her head, a brief tensing and releasing of her abdominal muscles. It looked rather as though she were in the midst of a particularly engaging dream. The suit Volyova had put Khouri in to operate the gunnery was a single, full-body covering, high-shine white and silver, sleek like latex. It clung to her body even more than her normal uniform, highlighting every lean muscle, adorned with subtle lines and blocks of colour that seemed to outline every curve. Volyova smiled. Khouri had made no comment about the suit when she was first given it, and had not questioned Volyova’s assertion that it was designed for ease of diagnostic feedback, but the Ultra woman had been able to see from the look in her large eyes that she did not believe it was coincidence it looked so obviously fetishistic. Designing something so appealing for Khouri to wear had been an enjoyable diversion.

 _I do take my pleasures where I find them. And Khouri makes it so very easy…_

She balanced astride the front of the chair, extremely cautious as to where she put her feet, one hand holding to the innermost shell of the casing to steady herself. There was sufficient space beneath the gunnery chair—really just the bottom of the innermost casing—that she was able to keep stable footing as long as she didn’t try to move around too much. She reached out and ran her hands languidly over Khouri’s body, feeling the firmness of her muscles, the subtle curves beneath the smooth, glossy suit. Khouri did not noticeably react, which was expected. Volyova reached up and caressed the helmet over Khouri’s head. The studded piece was very slightly warm and she could feel it humming ever so faintly. 

Volyova adjusted her positioning with care to ensure she didn’t interfere with the gunnery mechanism nor lose her balance and fall. She hoisted herself with her long legs on either side of one of Khouri’s—there was just enough space—and pulled herself closely against her body, wrapping one arm around Khouri’s shoulders to help anchor herself. Khouri was held tightly in the gunnery chair, but Volyova’s thin arm managed to fit behind the helmet, brushing against some of the cables. Khouri was so small, there was a little space on either side of her; Nagorny had been tall and ungainly, he scarcely fit into the seat, inelegantly crammed into the tight space. But Khouri… 

_She fits so perfectly…_ Volyova felt the beginning coil of arousal moving up from the pit of her stomach, the first momentary flush of heat, as she ran her hands over Khouri’s body again, thinking of the thousands of lethal instruments to which it was currently attuned. She shuddered with pleasure at the implication. She caressed Khouri’s body with an almost loving delicacy, imagining that as her hands moved over her body, they were also stroking the ship’s many armaments that bristled from its hull. She pictured the exterior of the lighthugger, with its many sensors and gun emplacements, and thought of touching the cold metal, alive with the promise of lethality and destruction. 

Volyova sighed softly as she settled more comfortably into place, allowing Khouri’s thigh, supported by the gunnery seat itself, to take most of her weight. The positioning was somewhat awkward with her long legs, but she would manage well enough. It was worth it for the reach it afforded her. She reached down for her uniform pants and pressed the fastening that retracted the central portion, shivering with pleasure as the material shifted out of the way and she felt the glossy smoothness of the suit against her skin. _That little modification has been a good investment considering how little time it took me to implement_ , she thought with a touch of amusement. 

Khouri was breathing slightly faster now, as she would have with mild exertion. The simulation had doubtless become more challenging, requiring more of her active concentration, as Volyova had intended. Or did Khouri have some very distant, shadowy awareness of Volyova’s presence, like catching the last glimpse of something in one’s peripheral vision? Volyova was fairly certain it was the former, but since she could never use the gunnery herself, she had only her best guess.

 _What are you feeling in that place, Khouri? What is it like?_

As she slowly started grinding against Khouri’s thigh, Volyova returned to caressing her, her hands occasionally wandering to the chassis that partially surrounded the gunnery chair and gliding over the smooth metal surface, the cables, the chair itself. She touched everything she could reach, shivering with pleasure at the varied textures of her beautiful device. Khouri gave no sign she could tell what was going on.

“Nh… ah…” Volyova wasn’t in a hurry. She moved slowly, less concerned with the end goal than she was with simply taking time to enjoy the sensations. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the equipment, the mechanical hum and the sound of Khouri’s breathing. She squeezed her thighs together as she moved her hips, feeling herself getting wetter against Khouri, more easily able to slide against her thigh, slippery and smooth. It felt good, and she could have satisfied herself enough to come in this way relatively easily. But there was an additional purpose to this experiment, beyond even her own gratification. _I want to see what effect I can have on Khouri,_ Volyova decided.

She reached between Khouri’s legs and felt for the hidden closure, pulling it down with gratifying fluidity. Carefully, she climbed off Khouri, still running her hands over Khouri’s body as she moved down. There was barely enough room for her to crouch between Khouri’s legs, balanced against one of the encasing shells of the gunnery seat, but it was sufficient provided Volyova herself did not move. It was admittedly hazardous, but the Triumvir couldn’t help herself. She leaned in and carefully spread Khouri’s pussy open with one hand, smiling softly. 

Khouri stirred, a slight twitch of her thighs as Volyova leaned in and licked her slowly, running her tongue up and down her slit in unhurried laps. Volyova closed her eyes and listened to the hum of the equipment. She thought of the cache, picturing a slow sort of opening up of the cache chamber as though exposing Khouri like this also exposed those secret, terrifying weapons. Volyova feared the cache-weapons, and their awesome power, nearly as much as she was fascinated with them, but they were _hers_ , under her control, and that was the most exhilarating of all. 

_Khouri… she’s mine, and everything she’s touching, everything she’s in contact with right now, all of it mine…_ A soft moan escaped her as she reached down between her legs and began rubbing her clit in slow, careful circles, her fingers sliding over it; she was already so wet she could hear the wet noises faintly above the quiet hum of the gunnery chamber. As she continued licking Khouri she could taste her, too, becoming wetter, gradually, her body’s automatic response to the stimulus working as normal regardless of where her mind was currently connected. 

_She tastes so good… I ought to do this more often._

And though she showed no conclusive awareness, though she made no clear sign she could actually tell what was happening to her, Khouri _was_ reacting more now, in small but noticeable ways. Her mouth hung open slightly as she panted for breath, and her thighs kept twitching, though they couldn’t really move much with her restrained in the gunnery chair. Volyova continued licking her, slowly, savoring her taste and the minute twitches of her body. Khouri’s scent mingled with the smells of the gunnery, a heady mixture of organic and mechanical. Volyova moved her fingers more rapidly over her clit, moaning softly against Khouri.

Small moans slipped from Khouri’s mouth now, breathy, trembling, wonderfully vulnerable. Volyova could hear her only a little with the helmet, but it was enough to be obvious what the little sounds were. 

_I wonder if it’s becoming difficult for her to perform quite so adequately in the simulation,_ Volyova wondered. Her mind buzzed with questions even amidst the fog of her arousal. _What exactly is she feeling, in gunspace while I touch her? Does she feel as though something is happening to the ship? Her body’s reaction tells me she feels **something** , but not what form it might take. It is obvious she is not consciously aware of what’s happening to her, so perhaps the gunnery interface is finding some way to translate these physical inputs into something she can experience while connected to the ship? _ Volyova could not help but analyze the technical aspects in great detail, even at a time like this. Her distaste for implants anywhere near herself—the quirk of personality that gave her the designation of _brezgatnik_ among Ultras—did not impair her appreciation for what they were capable of doing. The gunnery implants had been her carefully cultivated design; she had built the entire apparatus herself, and knew many aspects of it intimately, but it would never be the _same_ intimacy with the ship and its weapons that Khouri was now experiencing. An intimacy into which, in her own way, Volyova had now inserted herself. The thought gave her an additional pleasurable shiver. 

Volyova pulled her fingers away from her pussy, now thoroughly slick and wet, and slid two of them inside Khouri’s instead, feeling the delicious heat and tightness closing around them. Khouri’s reaction was all the more noticeable now—a visible tensing of her thighs as Volyova’s fingers pushed inside her, and a moan that rose above the volume of a breath, shaky but unmistakable even muffled by the helmet. Volyova began to thrust her fingers unhurriedly, still licking her, gratified by the way Khouri’s body responded even without Khouri’s conscious awareness. She began licking more rapidly now, flicking her tongue over Khouri’s clit in a more rhythmic pattern as she slowly moved her fingers inside her, curling them with each thrust, feeling the soft, sensitive spot just a bit inside. Khouri moaned, her hips twitching against Volyova’s mouth, and Volyova licked her faster, feeling that Khouri had to be close. She had made her come enough times by now to be able to sense, in the unconscious movements of her body, when her climax was near.

_Mmm, what will happen, when I make her come, what will it feel like for her?_

Volyova intensified her movements, moving her fingers and tongue almost in sync, and then she felt Khouri tighten around them, hearing Khouri’s sharp gasp that broke into a string of shaky moans as she came. Her body twitched and trembled as Volyova drew out her orgasm with continuing slow licks, savoring it. She felt Khouri’s twitching beginning to dwindle and carefully removed her fingers, humming with satisfaction. Khouri’s fluids coated most of her hand and she licked the excess before it could drip onto her bracelet. 

_Now for the second part of my experiment…_ _If she was aware of nothing, it will be immensely satisfying to see her reaction when I pull her back into her body and she feels the effects of what I’ve been doing to her…_

Volyova pulled back, licking Khouri’s juices from her lips with a satisfied smile, and spoke a quick set of commands into her bracelet. It was one of the only ways in which the gunnery systems connected in any capacity with anything other than the weapons themselves. She could feel her own heart beating faster in anticipation as she selectively deactivated parts of the simulation. Khouri would gradually regain an awareness of her body without totally losing her connection in gunspace, a sort of layered consciousness that would no doubt be disorienting, but nothing _terrible_ … most likely. Climbing carefully back up to sit on Khouri’s leg, she watched Khouri closely for the signs she was sliding out of gunspace and reconnecting with her physical body. 

_At my best estimation, it should happen quite… abruptly._

Then Khouri gasped as she was, very suddenly, entirely aware of herself, her physical, real self, again, jarred abruptly from the vast abstraction of gunspace—but it was as though whatever had ripped her from that place held back at the last second. She blinked repeatedly, disoriented, as her somatosensory cortex attempted to reconcile her body that she was feeling again with the “body” that was the ship and its weapons systems. In this superimposed state the specifics of her body returned in bits and pieces. At first she could not even tell that Volyova had exposed her—and then she could feel it, the heat in her body, how wet she was, the pleasant infusion of warmth that followed an orgasm… 

_What’s—what’s going on, I feel—so hot, god, god I want—feels like I might’ve?— **how** —_

“Wh—what’s going on?” she asked, through the comms, still unaware that Volyova was not elsewhere at all, but rather standing very close to her. “Triumvir, I-I feel—”

“Something wrong?” Volyova asked, and Khouri jolted with a gasp of surprise at the closeness and immediacy of Volyova’s voice. 

“What are you doing here?!” Khouri exclaimed. She tried to turn her head this way and that, an automatic reflex as she tried to orient herself, but she couldn’t move her head much restrained in the chair. “What—h-how—”

Realization, comprehension, crashed into Khouri’s mind as the pieces seemed to fall into place. The strange feeling she had begun to experience in the simulation, that sense of something stroking the ship’s hull, suddenly had quite an obvious explanation.

“A little experiment with the gunnery,” Volyova said softly, smiling at Khouri’s attempts to look around. “Something I would like to try.”

“H-have you—have you been touching me while I was in the simulation?” Khouri asked. “There was something odd going on in there, but I couldn’t work out what it was… I kept feeling these faint sensations but I attributed them to the unusual weaponry I encountered…” She was rambling, speaking quickly as she attempted to organize her thoughts. “Ilia, did I… just now, did you make me…?”

Volyova grinned. “I did… so, did anything unusual happen a few moments ago? While you were still in the simulation?”

“I… don’t really know,” Khouri said. “I felt… _something_ didn’t feel normal… it wasn’t bad, it felt good in fact, but I couldn’t place where it was coming from.”

“Interesting…” 

“But, Ilia, aren’t you worried about—I mean, it doesn’t seem like a very good idea—”

“The gunnery is isolated from the rest of the ship,” Volyova said, assuming Khouri’s objection had to do with worry about the rest of the Triumvirate. Or perhaps only Sajaki. Khouri had picked up on little of the complex shipboard politics, but she had absorbed Volyova’s clear fear of Sajaki well enough. 

In a tone that told Khouri further argument in this direction would be entirely fruitless, the Ultra woman continued, “I have no concerns about our being disturbed. No one can access the gunnery or even observe the gunnery chamber directly, without this.” She tapped a finger against her bracelet. Khouri could not see, of course, but understood anyway. 

“Can’t… can’t we do this somewhere else, I don’t want to do this _here_ ,” Khouri mumbled, feeling herself flush deeply, the heat creeping across her face as a sinking feeling settled in her stomach. “Ilia… it’s not… it’s not like I’m trying to say no, just, not here…” When Volyova didn’t immediately respond Khouri swallowed, grasping for the switch to break the connection.

“I told you I wanted to do an experiment,” Volyova said, and there was a sudden sharp edge to her voice. “Don’t disengage the connection.” 

Khouri froze mid-motion, grateful that Volyova couldn’t see her flushing. “You _really_ want to do… that… _here_?” she asked incredulously. “While I’m connected to this thing?”

“It may produce some extremely interesting results,” Volyova said. “I’ve been considering trying something like this for a little while, you know.” She reached for Khouri’s hand where it held the switch. “Indulge me.”

Khouri released the switch, somewhat reluctantly. It was difficult to think properly with the confusing sense of her body and the “body” of the _Infinity_ overlaid imperfectly, a strange neurological double-vision. The gunnery imposed a sense of relaxation even with the connection tampered with in this manner, but that was difficult to reconcile with how she actually felt. She could not see her surroundings inside the gunnery chamber. Her vision was still consumed with what was outside the ship, that mixture of a view with the ship as herself and the exterior view afforded by _Nostalgia for Infinity_ ’s numerous cameras and sensors. There was not much to see outside the ship at that moment, however, merely the blackness of interstellar space. Unusual sensations lingered even now, mingled with the warmth of her recent orgasm, the continuing warmth of arousal. She felt motion around her—unsurprising given that the lighthugger was still in the process of accelerating, drawing closer and closer to light speed. There was feeling like a gentle caress as the lighthugger pierced through space, the ablative ice-cladding brushed by minute particles of cosmic dust. It should have felt like an abrasion, but it was more akin to the most feather-light touch of fingertips dragging over her skin. 

“Something feels… nice,” Khouri breathed. “Ilia…?” 

No, she realized suddenly—that _wasn’t_ coming from outside the lighthugger. It was _Volyova_ , who had climbed back onto the gunnery seat and had pressed her body against Khouri’s, running her hands over her. Khouri shivered at the strangeness of the feeling. She could feel Volyova’s hands on her shoulders, her arms, her breasts, and that caress on the body of the ship, one and the same, something she knew she was feeling and something it hardly seemed possible she could feel.

“Tell me how it feels when I touch you,” Volyova said. “I deliberately didn’t pull you entirely out of gunspace, so you should be experiencing some very interesting sensory feedback. Tell me _everything._ ” Her inquiry was almost clinical in its phrasing, but there was a breathiness to her voice betraying the interest that was not at all scientific.

Khouri concentrated, struggling to describe the sensations. “It… it feels like… like I’ve got two bodies, and they’re both being touched?” She bit her lip as Volyova squeezed and kneaded her breasts, giving a small shiver of pleasure, feeling the hull rippling with a pleasing sensation. Her body felt more sensitive after coming once, and the confusing overlaid consciousness did not help matters. “N-no, wait, not… two bodies, exactly… I don’t know how to describe it, Ilia, how the fuck would a ship say it felt to be touched? I can still feel my body, my body that’s not the ship, but the gunnery’s telling me things are happening…”

“Intriguing… what can you see? I take it your visual perception is still restricted to the gunnery interface?” 

“Yeah, space outside, which is pretty much fucking nothing right now, and me—I mean, the ship… and all my diagnostics. They look normal, but Ilia, it feels… strange,” Khouri protested, squirming slightly in the seat. Volyova was so close she couldn’t pull back from her, and even had she been able to, she was too thoroughly restrained in the gunnery seat to do much of anything. “I don’t… I’m not sure I like it. It’s hard to think properly. Are you sure this is… considered?” 

“I’m monitoring your status,” Volyova said. “If there is a problem, I’ll know about it.” She glanced at her bracelet, looking over the diagnostic readouts. “All neural irregularities are well within acceptable limits.” Unexpectedly, her tone became serious. “I will not allow any neurological damage to occur to you.” 

Khouri felt a sinking sensation in her gut despite Volyova’s reassurance, realizing that, as always, she really had no say in the matter. “Listen, Ilia, didn’t you tell me these implants were experimental? What if this kind of… use causes damage or a malfunction?” 

Volyova gave a scratchy laugh. “What are you so afraid of, Khouri?” Her amusement sounded genuine, but it was hard to tell. 

“Look, I’m not _afraid_ of anything,” Khouri said defensively. “This just… it gives me a bad feeling. It can’t be a proper use of this thing, how can you know it won’t do something terrible?”

“Trust me,” Volyova said, softly but firmly. 

Khouri paused. “It’s only… this thing, while I’m… like this, it’s making me want to use the weapons. I mean, more than usual for when I’m in the seat.” She shifted anxiously. “I’ve never had this kind of feeling before, and I’ve used a lot of different weapons in my life.”

Volyova raised an eyebrow, though of course Khouri couldn’t see. “Explain,” she prompted.

Khouri swallowed nervously. “I don’t know _how_ to explain.”

“ _Try_ ,” Volyova said dryly.

“It’s like I told you… when I’m connected to the gunnery, I want to _use_ it, right?” Khouri began, trying to sort through her thoughts well enough to articulate them. “But with you touching me… w-well… it feels good…” She paused, thinking hard. “So, the weapons, I mean… it feels like it would… feel good to use them.”

Volyova hummed appreciatively. “Go on.”

“I can’t deploy weapons while the ship is under this level of thrust, it would damage them,” Khouri continued. “But it feels like it would feel so _good_ to use them.” She swallowed again. “When you touch me, it just makes it… more tempting.”

Volyova grinned. _What a delicious development. Perhaps the neural effects of the gunnery implants when they are connected to the seat are being amplified by the natural arousal chemicals? Even I wouldn’t have expected that._

“Then you’ll just have to do the best you can to control yourself, won’t you,” Volyova purred, reaching down between Khouri’s legs with some difficulty now that she herself was so close. Khouri moaned and struggled to close her legs, though of course it was useless with the gunnery seat holding them in place.

“Wait—don’t—” Khouri whimpered. “I’m—I’m still too sensitive—” Volyova’s fingers slid over her pussy slowly, every sensation heightened by the recent orgasm, her lack of sight, by the blurry overlaying of her sense of the ship mixing with her own body. As Volyova stroked her clit with her fingertips, slow up and down movements, Khouri felt as though the ship were being touched by _something_ , _somewhere,_ but not merely the outside of the hull. There was an odd sense that Volyova’s fingers were brushing over the cache chamber, caressing the cache-weapons lightly, and with every pass of her fingers it sent pseudo-electric prickling over them, carrying to Khouri’s clit and back again. 

“A-ah—Ilia—it’s too much—” Khouri’s voice was high and shaky. Her heart was pounding against her ribs. “Aaah—hnn, Iliaaa… don’t—”

“You don’t _really_ want me to stop,” Volyova purred, still moving her fingers, listening to the hum of the machinery and Khouri’s soft moans. “So sensitive… but I know I can get more out of you.” She caressed Khouri’s neck, then reached to caress the cables and equipment where it connected with the helmet. The cables were warm, smooth, and she enjoyed the tactile pleasure of the varied sizes bundled together under her fingers. 

Khouri moaned, trying to shake her head, unable to. Slowly but surely, Volyova’s fingers were coaxing further pleasure from her whether she wanted them to or not, building her back up with a newly sharpened intensity. “It’s—it feels, it’s hot—the weapons—” she spoke quickly, almost babbling in her effort to articulate the utterly foreign sensations the gunnery was overlaying on the now familiar feel of Volyova’s touch. “I-I can’t—nhh, I want… ah, ah—” 

“Yes?”

“Hot, it’s too _hot_ ,” Khouri repeated, breathlessly. “A-ah—ahh, Ilia—feels like you’re—like something’s _touching_ them—”

“Like I’m touching the _weapons_?” Volyova prompted, fascinated.

“Yes—ah… nhh, they feel so _warm_ , all over my body…”

It pleased Volyova greatly to have Khouri refer to the weapons as though they were, indeed, part of her body, the perceptual distortion of gunspace blurring the sensory input Volyova was imposing on her body with the gunnery’s incredibly complex programmed neural feedback. Curious, Volyova told her bracelet to produce diagnostic readouts of the actual ship’s armaments, rapidly scanning the outputs. In spite of what Khouri was reporting, the weapons showed no signs of excessive heat or other unusual activity.

 _Fascinating perceptual distortion… Can I affect the weapons through what I do to her, or is it only that what I do is affecting what she perceives in gunspace?_ Volyova’s ever-analytical mind continued to whirr with questions, though even she had to admit her proper theoretical analysis was impaired somewhat by her own arousal. It would be a matter for later contemplation, when Khouri, too, had been placed in reefersleep, and the Ultra woman had no one but the janitor rats for company, and nothing but her own hands for satisfaction. 

Volyova kept moving her fingers, ever so slowly, relishing the way Khouri twitched under her fingers, watching the repeated tensing of her thighs. She wasn’t certain whether Khouri was trying to close her legs now, or open them wider. _It must be hard for her… But she’s handling it so well._

“Activate the weapons,” Volyova said. “You want to, don’t you? Activate the emplacements, on the outer hull.” As she spoke she slid her fingers lower, letting them slip inside Khouri just barely, feeling her pussy throbbing hotly at the touch. 

“Fuck—Ilia, I don’t, I don’t know… I don’t—h-aah—I can’t think like this—” Khouri’s protest was swallowed by a shaky little whine as Volyova slid her fingers further inside, flexing them back and forth with careful precision, letting the tips of her fingers rub intermittently against the soft, sensitive spot just inside her. She could feel Khouri’s body against hers, shivering with every tiny movement, feel her pulse from inside.

“You want to deploy them, make them ready for use, don’t you?” As she spoke, the Ultra woman called up the diagnostics on her bracelet and scanned over them rapidly, double-checking to ensure the _Infinity_ ’s weaponry would not actually be deployed in reality. With the lighthugger well on the way in its inexorable acceleration closer and closer to lightspeed, to actually activate any of the devices even merely to allow them to emerge from their emplacements would indeed inevitably damage them, as Khouri had noted. The data confirmed this; Khouri’s perception of the ship was still being simulated, even if it looked identical to the current environment and status. That was good; it would not please her at all if her enjoyable experiment caused any harm to the ship, the gunnery systems, or to Khouri. 

“But Ilia… hnn, won’t that… ah, hurt…? No, that’s not right, it’s, it’ll damage them? I can’t…” Khouri sounded unsure, despite her nervousness. “Nhh, please… ah, ah…” 

_She must not have realized I didn’t entirely deactivate the simulation, just set it to neutral defaults._ Evidently Khouri lacked the awareness that actions she took now would still only affect a simulated version of _Nostalgia for Infinity_ , still apparently believing that any commands she issued to the ship now would take effect on the actual vessel. Khouri’s subjective perception was distorted, her grasp on reality weakened. Volyova surmised this was due to the sensory overload she was inflicting on her; Khouri’s brain simply couldn’t properly process everything at once and so some information was simply being discarded.

Sufficient precautions taken, Volyova resumed talking to Khouri, adjusting her own position astride her thigh, giving a little pleasurable shiver of her own as she balanced in place. “It won’t hurt you,” she said, distractedly. “Go on… activate them.”

“Ilia… ah, please…” 

“Do it, Khouri,” Volyova urged, moving her fingers too slowly in and out to properly call thrusting, teasing her. Khouri trembled, biting her lip, considering. Volyova’s hand slid up again, fingers resting on Khouri’s clit. She felt the heated flesh pulse beneath her hand. 

“Ilia, _please_ —I-I don’t know—”

“Do it,” she repeated in a whisper. “If you want me to keep touching you.” 

Khouri’s resistance cracked. “Nh… y-yes, Ilia,” she answered, almost too quietly to be heard. She took a deep breath and relaxed muscles she was unaware she had been tensing. She felt the weaponry that bristled from the hull sliding, moving, emerging from its nearly seamless emplacements, apertures irising open and shutters folding in on themselves. The readouts fed back to her as rapidly as her own thoughts, as one by one, _Nostalgia for Infinity_ ’s weapons alerted her to their activation. The process took milliseconds as the information was transmitted to Khouri’s implants, but it took seconds longer for Khouri’s conscious mind to process it, running over the data as methodically as she could manage.

Which was not very methodically at _all,_ given the way Volyova was still touching her; Khouri’s thoughts assembled only in a chaotic jumble, her mind struggling to make sense of the inputs. Khouri shivered. It was too much, but it felt _good_ , too. 

Some weapons, she felt, would require priming before they could fire. Others could fire immediately, requiring no more effort than a thought to unleash their destruction. As Volyova stroked her fingers over her clit, steadily and slowly, that desire to _use_ the gunnery’s power grew stronger.

“Status?” Volyova prompted softly, abruptly focusing Khouri’s thoughts. She wanted to answer her, and the reply came automatically, a soldier’s conditioned response.

“Hull weapons are a-active, Triumvir,” Khouri breathed. 

Volyova made an appreciative sound and let her fingers glide further down, working two of them into Khouri’s pussy and feeling the intense heat and tightness as she pressed in down to the knuckles. Khouri gave a strangled moan as Volyova’s fingers sheathed inside her.

“Ilia… nh…” 

“Good girl,” Volyova murmured. “You’re so wet… how did that feel?” She flexed her fingers gently, enough only to rub teasingly against her walls in that deep inside place only she could reach. 

Khouri moaned, unconsciously trying to move her hips towards Volyova’s hand, though the best she could do was to slightly arch them, scarcely enough to make a difference. “It’s… it’s _good_ ,” she breathed. “I can feel them, ah, all over my body… ready, waiting—hnn, Ilia...”

“Yes, it does feel good, doesn’t it?” Volyova said. “You’re so connected with those systems, when I touch you, I can touch all of them… all of it belongs to me.” She was almost rambling now, but it hardly mattered. Khouri was hardly in a place to notice it.

“Nh, Ilia, please… a-ah, it’s good…” Volyova could see Khouri straining to get closer to her in the tension of her muscles. The sight was delicious. She flexed her fingers inside her, slowly, back and forth, and Khouri gave a soft cry, trembling with need.

“What do you want, Khouri?” Volyova asked.

Khouri whined, straining to get closer, ineffectively. “Ilia… more, touch me more…” 

“Prime the grasers for firing,” Volyova ordered. It somehow did not strike her as particularly incongruous for her to give such otherwise normal orders to her Gunnery Officer with her fingers buried inside her, though she thought, distantly, that perhaps it should have. But then, Triumvir Ilia Volyova had never given much consideration to the trivial concern of what others considered normal, and she wasn’t going to start now.

“Please, Ilia,” Khouri repeated, “I can’t—I can’t think—”

“I know you want to,” Volyova said, fucking her slowly, the wet noises echoing in the semi-enclosed space. “Just like you want me to fuck you, isn’t that right?” Khouri moaned with each thrust, Volyova’s fingers sliding in deeply, rubbing inside her—she felt her own hot breath fogging the inside of the gunnery helmet, heard her own desperate breathing. “Do it, Khouri.” 

Khouri folded. “Y-yes, Triumvir.” She willed the command to transmit to the weaponry and felt the grasers warming to full readiness, absorbing energy with a feeling almost akin to vibration that traveled momentarily down her spine. She almost thought she could hear them humming as she watched them extend, ready for firing. There was a sensation of potential energy, glowing, waiting.

“Weapons hot,” Khouri breathed, “so please… nhh, please, Ilia…”

“That’s good…” Volyova purred. “Go on, tell me what you want…”

“Ilia… nhh... ”

“You have to tell me, Khouri. Beg, and you know I’ll do it.”

Khouri made a strangled sound. “...fuck me… please…” 

“Good girl…” Volyova obliged her, now thrusting her fingers with steady rhythm, rewarded by Khouri’s louder moans. “Go on… fire them.”

Khouri gasped wordless agreement, and gave the command to the grasers to fire. They unleashed their fury in a single synchronized burst, arcing away into the blackness of space. There was nothing for them to impact, but it scarcely mattered. Khouri shuddered with the reverberation of their simultaneous discharge. 

“Confirmed—nh!—” she managed. “S-systems still, ah, functioning at full capacity…” Volyova moaned softly, squeezing Khouri’s thigh harder with her thighs as she slowly moved her hips up and down, shuddering at the delicious friction. She paused long enough to work a third finger inside Khouri’s pussy, stretching her further.

“Ah-ahh— _Ilia_ —ah—!” Volyova didn’t hesitate before she fucked her faster, hard straight thrusts that were enough to shake Khouri’s body. The stretch stung, especially with how roughly Volyova was thrusting her fingers, the ache radiating outwards as her body tried to adjust. With each thrust the Triumvir’s long fingers impacted deep inside and brought tears to her eyes, bursts of pleasure that seemed to ripple along the hull of the _Infinity_. 

_I can’t think at all, I can’t even see, it feels so good, I can’t think about anything but how good it feels!_

“Ngh, god, it’s so _good,_ Ilia—ahh-ah, _fuck me_ —”

“Mmm… that’s it, ah… keep talking, Khouri… tell me what you feel…”

“A-ah—Ilia, it’s, I feel, there’s something, inside the ship, inside me—like it slipped into the hull—it doesn’t hurt, it should have, it _pierced_ through the hull, but, it feels—so _good_ —” She shivered and could almost feel the entire ship shiver along with her, a wave of sympathetic energy washing over the lighthugger. Khouri felt the ship’s armaments running hot, all primed to fire now though there was nothing for them to fire upon and she was not consciously aware of having given the command, seeming to pulse in time with her own racing heartbeat. She had never felt anything so disorientating in her life, but the heat of the weapons seemed to feed back into her own arousal, pleasurable flushes of energy and warmth coiling in her belly, spreading impossibly outwards along the ship’s four kilometre length. The closer she came to coming, it seemed, the more these sensations crossed over to and blended with her perceptual experience in gunspace. “ _More_ —ngh, fuck—” 

“You’re so _wet_ for me,” Volyova purred, thrusting her fingers faster now. “I can feel you squeezing down so hard on my fingers… maybe we aren’t so different after all, you like using my weapons that much?” The wet sounds seemed to echo in the enclosed space of the gunnery seat, and she could smell Khouri, her scent mingled with the scent of ozone. Khouri’s moans grew louder, even with her voice distorted by the interface helmet, Volyova could hear her loud and clear.

“A-ah—nnh, _fuck_ —” Khouri moaned, “Ilia—Ilia, fuck me—”

She was trying her very hardest to thrust her hips toward Volyova’s hand, the muscles in her thighs and abdomen straining and tensing as she tried unsuccessfully to move. She could feel herself getting close, feel the building of heat climbing higher, the weapons running hotter, the urge to fire them stronger than ever.

And then Volyova gave her a new command, one she had known, even if not consciously so, was coming.

“Deploy something from the cache next…” Volyova’s voice was almost as ragged and breathy as Khouri’s, and Khouri, distantly, through the fog of her own pleasure, could tell the Ultra woman was close to coming, the cadence of her breaths hitching and shifting to irregular gasps.

“Which—ah—which one—Ilia—?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Volyova answered, squeezing her thighs together, pressing down harder with her hips. Her slit slid over Khouri’s leg, her wetness coating the suit. She was close, she could feel it. “Any of them—haahh— _any_ of them—”

Khouri could hear in the roughness of Volyova’s voice how turned on she was, how utterly absorbed in what she was doing, what she was wanting _Khouri_ to do. _I want… I want to do what she wants… I want to please her…_ She reached out to the cache chamber, as effortlessly as though she were thinking of moving her own arm, and grasped for one of the massive weapons, sending the compulsion to the first that her mind could alight on. In her fevered state, it was like grasping for something in the dark, by feel alone. The weapon began to move—the thing was shaped like an oblong tube, thin lines of segmentation spaced evenly around its brilliantly white outer hull. With graceful fluidity, the weapon moved along the monorail toward the aperture that would allow it outside the ship.

Volyova fucked her faster, her movements jerky, fingers buried deeply in Khouri’s pussy and stroking inside her rough and hard, the palm of her hand grinding against her clit. Her other arm was wrapped around Khouri and even through the suit, Khouri could feel the Triumvir’s nails digging hard into her shoulder.

“Status?” Volyova asked, breathlessly, feeling herself getting closer, closer.

“Cache-weapon—ah!—number 29, deployed—ah—outside the hull,” Khouri said, the words gasped out raggedly between her moans.

“Yes, yes, that’s good,” Volyova breathed. “Keep going…” The thought of using one of her horrors was always terrifying, but that fear only made it more intoxicating. Using them always felt like a transgression. She extricated her arm from around Khouri’s neck and slid two fingers into her own pussy, rapidly flexing them inside in just the way she liked and grinding hard against the palm of her hand, she was so close, it would take just a little more…

“Beginning—ahh!—activation, haahh-hnn, sequence—” Khouri said. “Ilia, I’m _close_ —” 

The cache-weapon began to shift and move, the segments detaching, smoothly pulling apart and opening up like the petals of a titanic flower. The inside of the petals shimmered like oil slick, rippling with iridescent color. Some kind of impossibly complex mechanism deep within the device’s heart was spinning, moving with incredible force, accelerating impossibly fast. Khouri could not sort out in precise terms what the cache-weapon would do when it was fired, there was too much _happening_ , far too many sensory inputs, she felt as though she too was overheating, a computer processor overclocked to a hazardous degree. Her mind swirled with two thoughts only; for Volyova to keep fucking her, and to fire the weapon, these overriding drives wiping out anything else. 

_Feels—feels good, it’s so fucking good—_

Khouri could feel the trembling in Volyova’s thin body against hers, and even with the helmet over her head, she could smell her and herself too. She could feel that peak approaching, feel herself being pushed inexorably higher and higher—the cache-weapon hovered in space, humming as it prepared for firing, waiting, poised on the edge of apocalyptic discharge.

“God Ilia, I’m—I can’t _control it_ —I can’t stop myself, I’m going to—”

“Yes, yes, that’s it, do it, let go, fire the fucking thing, _come for me_ , Khouri—” She could hear Khouri’s moans becoming ever higher, desperate—feel Khouri’s body shuddering—

“Ilia, _Ilia_ —”—and then Khouri cried out sharply, Volyova felt a rush of juices around her fingers, Khouri’s muscles clenching down _hard_ as she came, spasming and thrashing in the gunnery seat, her hips jerking against Volyova’s hand in erratic twitches of uncontrolled muscular release. The cache-weapon unleashed a brilliant beam of searing light that seemed to slice directly through spacetime in a tearing, screaming flash. It streaked blindingly across the void in a straight line, a shimmering distorted rend in the fabric of reality that burned as bright as a supernova, blinding Khouri, suffusing her senses with a powerful rush of heat and light, a soundless roaring in her ears blotting out everything for several heart-stopping seconds. Volyova kept fucking her with her fingers as Khouri shuddered with the force of it, drawing out the orgasm inexorably, the afterimage of the cache-weapon’s blast still superimposed over her eyes. 

Volyova thought of what Khouri had done, imagining what she must have felt when she came, and gasped out a harsh moan, her body jerking sharply against Khouri’s—

“Nh— _Khouri_ —!”—she came with a dramatic eruption of clear fluid that squirted out around her fingers, her walls clenching so hard she could hardly keep moving them, the liquid covering her hand and spraying all over Khouri’s body, dripping in rivulets down the slick surface of the suit. More burst forth and splashed onto the gunnery seat, even the interface helmet, soaking her hand and Khouri’s leg completely before finally ceasing. Volyova slowed her fingers inside Khouri gradually, rubbing and twisting inside her every time she whimpered and twitched, and finally stopped only when even those twitches had stopped. 

Volyova slumped forward against Khouri, panting for breath, the force of the orgasm so strong it had actually momentarily winded her. As she pulled her fingers carefully out of Khouri, and herself, she mumbled commands to her bracelet to deactivate the simulation completely, her voice thick with satiation. 

Khouri grasped the interface switch with a trembling hand and felt the solid _clunk_ as she disengaged it. Gunspace vanished around her and she pulled the helmet off, blinking stars from her eyes as her vision recovered from the dazzling flash of the cache-weapon. They stayed as they were, catching their breaths, even Volyova too exhausted to speak for many moments.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Khouri said, eventually. Her voice sounded hoarse. Volyova chuckled, though it was little more than a forceful exhalation. 

“What I would call… a very successful experiment,” Volyova said. She still sounded rather out of breath. Gradually, she found the use of her limbs again and climbed down with extreme care, her grip on the gunnery supports slippery even after she attempted to wipe her hands off on her clothes. Khouri followed after her. The gunnery chamber smelled almost as strongly of the two of them as it did of ozone and machinery. 

“How are you going to clean it up?” Khouri asked, without thinking. 

Volyova laughed. “It’s an incredibly advanced, self-contained weapons system, Khouri. Do you think I’d build such a thing that couldn’t even do something so simple as keep itself clean?”

“…no, I suppose not,” Khouri said, feeling foolish. The two of them fixed their clothes as they descended through the trapdoor out of the gunnery chamber. Volyova paused after descending the ladder to light up a new cigarette. The distinctive anise-like acridity of Volyova’s cigarettes overlaid on the smell of sex was becoming a very familiar scent to Khouri.

Khouri felt utterly filthy. The mix of Volyova’s juices and her own was gradually soaking into the experimental suit, clinging to her skin and making her feel sticky. She cleared her throat uncomfortably, hoping to shed the sudden self-consciousness. “Listen, Ilia… If you don’t mind, I’m going to go take a shower.” 

“I could do with one myself, I suppose,” Volyova said, assessing the state of her own clothes. She had soaked herself almost as thoroughly as Khouri. She knew she smelled of sex; her cigarettes would hardly conceal it, but at present even that did not unduly concern her. Apart from herself and Khouri, only Triumvir Sajaki remained awake, the rest of the crew having already been placed in reefersleep. It seemed unlikely she would even encounter him before having a chance to wash off. She felt too content for now to have space in her mind for any worries, even those concerning Sajaki. Khouri was not the only one afforded blissful relief from troubling thoughts by these things.

“Go, take your shower,” Volyova said. She finished her cigarette and tossed the stub away. A janitor rat scampered past, picked up the detritus in its teeth, and disappeared down the corridor. She flashed Khouri a grin. “Oh, and consider your practice sessions finished for today.” 


End file.
